Week 1 Field session: Choosing your queue

Two hours to commit to the queue you will still be measuring in week 12, and to find out why your first choice will not work.

24 February 2027

These are probably the most consequential two hours of the whole semester, which is an odd thing to have to say about week 1. The queue you settle on here is the queue you will use in The Measured Queue, in most of Whose Time It Was, and again in The Redesign. Choosing badly really does cost you the rest of the semester, and it is a surprisingly easy mistake to make, so we spend the full two hours on it rather than rushing you.

What happens#

First forty minutes, in the room. Everyone proposes a queue. We go round, and Priya says why each one will not work. This sounds unkind and it is the most useful part. The usual failures are a queue that only exists at 8am on a Tuesday, a queue you cannot legally stand next to, a queue with three customers an hour, and a queue that is really four queues.

Next hour, outside. You go and stand next to your candidate. Not to measure it, just to look at it. Where does it start. Can you see the server. Is there somewhere you can stand for an hour without being asked to move.

Last twenty minutes, back in the room. You write your queue on the board with its location and its busy period. It is now yours.

What makes a good queue for this course#

• You can get to it twice in a week without it being a trip.
• At least thirty arrivals an hour during its busy period.
• You can see both the joining point and the service point from one position.
• Somebody is in charge of it and could in principle be asked about it.

On permission#

Most public queues need none. Anything on private property, anything indoors with staff, and anything where you will be visibly writing things down for an hour needs a conversation. Have it this week, not in week 4. Priya has a one-paragraph email that works.

Bring#

• A phone with a stopwatch.
• Something to write on that works standing up. A phone is worse for this than a notebook and you will find out why on Wednesday next week.
• A second choice of queue, because roughly a third of first choices fail.

What leaves the room#

You leave with your queue written up on the board and in the shared list, along with its location and its busy period. After week 2 it does not change without you talking to Tessa first.